A friend of mine just forwarded me this article about the site Read at Work, which is an incentive sponsored by the New Zealand Book Council that is designed to encourage people to read…on company time!

The interface is designed to look exactly like Windows, and the short stories, poems, etc are made to look like businessy powerpoint presentations, so you can look busy while reading New Zealand’s literary works and classic novels.

I think this project is entirely in keeping with the mood of NTTL — glad to know there are more of us out there. Perhaps we should take the show to New Zealand next!

The most interesting aspect (in terms of this blog) is as right at the beginning of the press release, so I’ll repost it here:

Having Enough Time to Do What They Want is Key for Canadians

Religion and wealth at bottom end of scale; men place more importance on
marriage than women.

[VANCOUVER – Jun. 9, 2008] – Having enough leisure time, being successful in their careers and doing volunteer work are all more important to Canadians than following their religious beliefs, being wealthy and getting married, a new Angus Reid Strategies poll reveals.

In the online survey of a representative national sample, 96 per cent of respondents say having enough free time to do what they want is very important or moderately important to them. Achieving career success (89%), volunteering (74%) and having children (72%) are also high on the scale of accomplishments.

Let’s start with the numbers. The Steelcase research found that the traditional U.S. lunch hour has shrunk to more of a lunch break—just 31 minutes. Fifty-five percent of workers take a half an hour or less for lunch. Women are much more likely to take shorter lunches than men (61% vs. 48%).

[…]

“We’re double-tasking, eating lunch over the keyboard tray and trying to get work done at the same time,” says Richard Bliss, vice president and senior designer at Solomon Cordwell Buenz in Chicago. “You grab fifteen minutes of break time because your schedule is so chaotic, and you’d rather take a short break at lunch so you can get out of the office at a decent time at the of the day.”

[…]

Down Under, Australians say they’re just too busy to nosh at noon. One in three skips lunch at least once a week. One in ten rarely or never has it. In a poll conducted by ACNeilsen Omnibus, one in five Australians takes less than 20 minutes for lunch, one-third of lunchers dine for just 20-30 minutes, and only 16% enjoy a comparatively luxurious 45-60 minutes for lunch. [3]

[…]

“Lunch is a kind of telltale sign about large issues in the workplace. With the global nature of business, a larger pool of competitors, downsizing every industry, a general reluctance to add staff too quickly, employees need to work harder and longer,” says Chris Congdon, corporate marketing manager for Steelcase. “Our professional and personal lives are busier than ever. Something’s got to give, and it looks like it’s lunch.”

[…]

Still, if you’re looking for reasons to fit in an outside bite, lunch can help you:

1. Develop business relationships

Network, meet-and-greet and — who knows? — maybe strike a deal.

2. Get to know your coworkers and clients

How often have you said, “We ought to go to lunch”?

3. Get to know your employees

Lunch can help strengthen any relationship.

4. Generate some innovative thinking

“Scheduled brainstorming” is an oxymoron. An informal lunch helps people relax and open up.

Work is eating into the average lunch break which now stands at 22 minutes, a survey has found.

And three out of four employees are under so much pressure to get work done they are choosing to take their break at their desks.

While the second most popular food choice three years ago was the traditional pub lunch, such a leisurely option no longer ranks in the top five.

A poll of 2,672 employees across Ireland found a jacket potato [aka baked potato — ed.] was the most popular food choice for a work meal-time, followed by fruit, pre-packed salad, pre-packed sandwiches and chips.

The average time spent taking a lunch break has dropped by just over half from 45 minutes when the survey was last carried out in 2005 by recruitment firm Peninsula Ireland, which advises workers on employment law.

“Irish employees are finding themselves too far behind at work to take a full lunch hour,” said Peninsula Ireland chief Alan Price.

Instead, many were choosing to eat at their desks and weren’t taking a proper amount of rest.

Mr Price said such a practice was “counter-productive” because it made staff tired at the end of the day and led to poorer quality of work.

Mr Price said Irish employers were legally obliged to give employees an hour’s break if they worked an eight-hour shift.
“Employees are well within their rights to demand they are given appropriate breaks and I would advise them to ensure that they take their full hour’s entitlement,” he said.

“A full break allows workers to rest and refresh themselves so they are ready for the afternoon. There are laws in place for a reason and it is actually less efficient for employees to take short breaks as productivity and work rate suffer.”

I’ll be the first to admit, my camera is great for snapshots of social situations, but it’s not particularly reliable for great, crisp images… the sort you’d want to document an exhibition.

So, please find below a set of preliminary photos of the No Time to Lose installation. PVA will be taking some properly lit images for archival purposes. IIUC, Cathy documented her installation at the library, as well. I look forward to seeing them!

Remember, larger versions of these images are available at our Flickr page…

The next day, from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. , we held an informal lunch time discussion to not only discuss the motivation of the exhibition and each featured artwork, but to discuss the wider phenomenon of overwork… what causes it and why society can’t seem to say “no”.

As shown in the photos below, the conversation was video recorded. Adam and Sean will be editing it down to a something akin to an exhibition “trailer”. At a later date, we’ll excerpt from it for our forthcoming publication.

Let’s keep the conversation going here!! If you have questions or ideas, please share them with us!